18 September 2016

The Perfect Sunday Brunch

Sundays are my favourite, even more so now we have Willow. For me Sundays have always been about relaxing, enjoying the last few hours of the weekend and taking every opportunity I can to pamper and unwind. Before having Willow, that would have involved long luxurious baths, targeted face masques and a mini at-home manicure. Now? Our Sundays consist of watching movies from my childhood, reading Willow's favourite books and enjoying lots of delicious food together as a family.

Willow started eating - or Baby Led Weaning to be specific - at exactly 6 months, and so our meal times together throughout the day are really important not only to uphold the routine (which is still fairly flexible), but to introduce Willow to healthy and tasty food.

I am a big foodie and with a Cypriot upbringing that was heavily influenced not only by the famous Mediterranean diet, but the appetite Greeks and Cypriots are known for. Since Willow began weaning, we have been trying to improve our diets overall, as although I cook from fresh and it's something I love to do, we have little regard for portion sizes. As well as changing up the amount we eat, we're trying new things and so our brunch - usually for me a huge very meaty English breakfast - was the perfect way to try out a healthier brunch option.

Today our family brunch was a tad more special than usual, with a La Belle Assiette Chef cooking for us in our very own home.

Our Chef, Halima Ferreira, arrived at 11am and got straight to work in our kitchen. I was a little nervous about having someone cook in our kitchen, even our home, as I'm the 'cook' in the family, but as soon as I opened the door to Halima I felt at ease; she's very friendly, yet professional at all times, she didn't feel like a stranger at all.

Our menu? Toasted English muffins with butter scrambled eggs and garlic porchini mushrooms, herbed tomatoes, baked beans and smoked salmon with twist of lemon and black pepper. To accompany our brunch, a glass of POM Wonderful pomegranate juice. It certainly sounded scrumptious on the menu and smelled amazing as Halima whipped it up in the kitchen for us. I couldn't wait to tuck in!

The food was absolutely delicious, perfectly cooked and beautifully presented on slate. I particularly loved the smoked salmon, herbed tomatoes and butter scrambled eggs. Even Willow had a taste, which seemed to go down well! A lovely way to enjoy Sunday brunch whilst having healthier options than our usual bacon, sausages and black pudding combo!

Having POM juice with our brunch was a light and refreshing pick which worked so well with our 'healthier' Sunday brunch. Pomegranates are one of my favourite fruits, so I had already tried POM Wonderful before, really enjoying the sweet and tart flavour. Although I have tried a variety of pomegranate juices before, my partner had only tried the fruit itself, so I was curious to see what he would think.

If you're a fan of pomegranates too, you'll be happy to know that there are six Californian-grown pomegranates inside each 710ml POM Wonderful bottle, with no unnecessary artificial ingredients like preservatives and colourants, no added sugar and it's even gluten-free. Pomegranates on a whole are quite a healthy choice, being a great source of potassium, vitamin C and antioxidants as well as a ton of other wonderful health benefits. It was a really nice alternative to our usual orange juice or cup of tea. POM is definitely a juice I will adding to our basket more often now, especially as my partner gave it his seal of approval too!

What a lovely - and slightly surreal - end to our weekend! Huge thanks to POM and La Belle Assiette for arranging such a scrumptious brunch together, and of course to Halima, who made us feel relaxed the whole time she was here. The brunch she put together for us was delicious, we feel very privileged to have had Halima cook for us in our home.

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